Tough Mudder 2017

On June 24, I participated in the New England Tough Mudder, 2017. I was part of a team of friends called “What would Joe Do?” This team is named after a family member who was an avid “Mudder” but was sadly taken too early. The team keeps on the tradition–I felt fortunate to be allowed to join them.

For those of you who might not know, a #toughmudder is a 10 mile course with numerous obstacles along the way. This particular one was held at Mt. Snow, VT, near Burlington. So not only was it a ten mile run/jog/walk, it was a lot of up and down. My sore calves and gracilii for the next few days after the race were a testament to that.

We had an early start, and first thing was splash through a mud puddle.

Almost immediately we started going up. After a 1 mile climb and a warmup obstacle, we came to the next: your basic wall climb.

This was a good obstacle to start with, especially for this virgin mudder. Of course, we were already ‘mudder’ish. I also had just gotten a new Olympus “tough” TG5 camera, for use in my next great adventure. It is a great little device which I am looking forward to learning and using. It is waterproof to 50 feet and went on this course through every obstacle.

A lot of up muddy slopes and down, slogging through mud and crawling under barbed wire–this was all in a days work. Some of the obstacles required brawn and others, brains and teamwork.

All in all, it was a day with challenge, team building and a sense of accomplishment.